New Orleans ? Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison are hoping for a perfect ending to their glorious Kansas University men’s basketball careers tonight.
“Cutting down the nets is all we want. That’s it,” Hinrich, KU’s 6-foot-3 senior guard from Sioux City, Iowa, said, speaking for himself and close buddy and teammate Collison, a 6-9 forward from Iowa Falls.
“It’s kind of crazy. It’s going to be my last game no matter what, win or lose. You just hope your last one is a win.”
A victory in tonight’s 8:22 p.m. game against Syracuse would give Collison and Hinrich a national championship in their final games as collegians. They are expected to have long NBA careers.
“It would be crazy,” Hinrich said of a victory. “Coach is going to be going crazy if we win. My teammates will be going crazy. It’s going to be the best feeling in the world. Hopefully, it just ends right.”
Collison agrees with his buddy of six years.
“Kirk and I have been together the longest,” Collison said of his former high school summer AAU teammate. “We probably have been through more things together coming from the same background. It would be great to win a national championship with some of your best friends. It would be a memory that would last forever.”
KU coach Roy Williams wants a title, not so much for himself, he maintains, but for his seniors.
“Being able to do it with these guys would be … you know I have a good education. I have a master’s degree. But it would be damn hard for me to explain how happy I would feel,” Williams said.
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More job talk: Collison isn’t surprised Williams has not yet ruled out taking the coaching job at Williams’ alma mater, North Carolina
“Kirk and I realize coach feels he’s doing the right thing,” Collison said of Williams. “He wouldn’t disrespect North Carolina by commenting on it (job) since he’s not been offered the job. That’s what we’ve told the guys, not to worry about it.”
Williams, who chose KU over North Carolina three summers ago when he was offered the UNC job, quipped about what might have been Saturday.
“One of my good friends asked me last spring when Nick and Kirk decided to stay, not go to the NBA, they said, ‘What would you have done if they had left?’ I said, ‘I’d have left with them.’ I don’t know if it was just coaching them, because I would have been scared to death. But Jeff (Graves) and Aaron (Miles) and Keith (Langford) … they would have had a big-time load on their shoulders there.”
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Collison knows Boeheim well: KU’s Collison played for Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim three times during summer trips with USA Basketball.
“He is a good guy, and we get along,” Collison said. “I give him credit for coming every summer and sticking with it, because there can be some tough trips. I have ridden with him on a four-hour cab ride in the Dominican Republic, and I also rode with him in New York with the craziest cab driver ever. I have been through a lot with him in the summer. He’s a good guy, but I’m still going to try to kick his tail tomorrow.”
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Explosion: A light bulb exploded and a small fire broke out on the podium as Syracuse held its press conference Saturday at the Superdome. The podium announcer told Boeheim there would be a short break in the proceedings to put out the fire.
“You have too much fear,” Boeheim joked.
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Show us your … gifts: KU red-shirt freshman Jeff Hawkins talked about a gift pack the NCAA hands out to all Final Four players.
“We got a nice little watch, candy, a T-shirt, a notepad so we can take notes at class, I guess,” Hawkins said. “Last year we got a digital camera.”
Freshman Moulaye Niang, who was seated next to Hawkins in KU’s locker room, laughed when a reporter asked Hawkins if the Jayhawks had seen any women lift their shirts in exchange for beads, a Bourbon Street tradition.
“It’s just I expected a question about basketball or the game. That’s really funny,” said Niang, who filmed several of his teammates with his own camcorder in the locker room.
Hawkins’ response, by the way, was: “I didn’t see that. I think I saw a guy dressed like a woman, though.”
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Common foes: KU’s Keith Langford was asked about Syracuse having defeated Big 12 teams Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Oklahoma State this season.
“First off, I really don’t care how other Big 12 teams are doing. You ask me, I want ’em to lose,” Langford said, drawing a roar of laughter in his own interview room.
The five KU starters each had their own interview room with up to 50 reporters in each room.
Williams says Syracuse’s 4-0 mark against the Big 12 is mind-boggling.
“It means they won the championship of the Big 12, I guess, because we lost twice,” Williams said of the Jayhawks, who won the regular-season title with a 14-2 record. “One year we played everybody in the Big Ten. It seemed this year we played everybody in the Pac Ten. It makes our kids have a great deal of respect for Syracuse.”
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Good coaches, good golfers: Williams and Boeheim are great golfers.
“Jimmy is a good player. He really has a nice swing,” Williams said. “He’s a much much better long-iron player than I am, a much more consistent player than I am. When he’s playing well, it’s a pretty game. (He) hits it on the fairway, knocks it on the green, two-putts, get out of the way.
“My game is a little more exciting, farther left, put it in a phone booth, see if I can get it up and down. The only putter I’ve played with in my life, I have it, I think I can get the ball in the hole. When Jimmy is playing well, he can handle anybody in the coaching profession.
“We have a little deal. We try to play at Pine Valley periodically, not together. I’ll leave my scorecard for him. The caddies will give it to him when he gets there. He does the same for me. We’re sort of a little unethical, because I don’t leave any of the bad scorecards. I’m sure he doesn’t leave any of the bad scorecards for me.”
Boeheim in turn commented on Williams’ game:
“We both used to be a lot better than we are,” Boeheim said. “Everybody thinks we are a lot better than we are. He hits it left to right, and I hit it right to left. That’s about all you need to know. We play the same golf course, but not many of the same areas on it.
“We really came together largely because of golf,” Boeheim added. “I think the first time I ever remember talking to Roy was on a golf course, and that was a long time ago. That was before he was head coach at Kansas. Since then, we play every year.”
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No call from Smith: Williams was asked if North Carolina coach Dean Smith had phoned him after the semifinal victory. It may have been a way for a sneaky reporter to ask if Williams had been contacted about the Carolina coaching vacancy.
“I talked to coach last weekend and have not talked to him since then,” Williams said. “I know he was watching the game. He was probably nervous.”
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Preparation, preparation: KU had just one day to prepare for Syracuse’s zone. Meanwhile, the Orangemen faced a running team in Texas Saturday, perhaps giving them an advantage in preparing for the Jayhawks.
“I think that is very close to being fact,” Williams said. “T.J. Ford makes Texas play a little differently, because they run to receive passes from him. We probably pitch ahead a little more. I think the change that we’ve got to be prepared for is more difficult, or at least more work, more thought-process than they will have to do playing us. Hopefully the experience of our players will help us, even though I think in some ways that (experience) is probably the most overplayed thing there is.”
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Yes he will cry: Win or lose, Williams may shed some tears tonight during his final postgame press conference of the season.
“I’ve been criticized a great deal because of the tears at the end of it,” said Williams. “I would hate to think my son played for somebody that didn’t care. I do deeply care. The people who have criticized me have never been tough enough to stand up and criticize me to my face, because I don’t mind that kind of confrontation. I grew up in western North Carolina with the hillbillies. We don’t mind that kind of thing.
“If we win, I’ve made a pact I’m going to be happy and not just tears of happiness. If we lose, I will have those tears because it’s two kids particularly that have been a huge part of my life for four years.”
